Thanks to the Best Buy HBO sale, I recently purchased the complete series of Deadwood.

When the show originally aired, I did not have HBO. Now some years later, I am looking to check this series out to see if it does indeed live up to the hype.

Prior to the purchase, I had seen only the pilot (some bonus disc I got years back) and it had been some time since I had watched that.

I started watching the series on Monday, so far seeing only the first episode.

My impressions were such:

-Bullock and Wild Bill have the old haunted gunslinger motif. I see them having a lot in common and butting heads on other things.

-Swearengen is more than just a villain and business man. He is a realist. He fully understands what he needs to do to keep things running his way, outside of the spoke of his business. Also his ruthlessness is undeniably bad ass.

-There is plenty of danger in Deadwood. The impression I had coming in was "eh there will be a few things that pop up", boy was I wrong. Really interesting in how they captured that.

-Love Charlie Utter. His motivations are really unique. Make him both loyal and stubborn.

I really enjoyed that first episode. Makes me really excited to see the rest of the series. I plan on posting more thoughts as I progress through the series.

The biggest problem with this series is that it suddenly

Groucho has a good point. The third season leaves you with serious narrative blue balls.

I thought there was a poetry to the finale that felt satisfying. I'd have loved more, but dug the ending anyway.

Obligatory....


NSFW (language):

Also, not to be a downer but the seasons get progressively worse as they go on.

Disagree. I think it starts strong, gets a little better as it goes, dips a bit, though stays good and "ends" strong.

I was watching this show for the first time recently as well and while I won't go so far as to say I didn't like it, I did quit on it about halfway through the second season.

How does it end "strong" when it doesn't even have an real ending, and even the creators said they were extremely disappointed that they couldn't give the show the ending they intended.

I just meant that the last few episodes were strong, and better than the middle lull. I put quotes around "end" denoting that I wasn't talking about an actual ending, but rather just the final batch of episodes in and of themselves.

I'm actually just finishing up my run with the series on Blu-Ray. I love the show. Everybody is so well written, and in my opinion, some of the performances are among the greatest in television history. It's pretty depressing that it ended without a proper finale.

You're in for a real treat macnorton, just don't grow too attached to the show, cause it's over before you know it.

Just like life

Does this show get good after the pilot? Cos I was really hyped to see it (as I love westerns) but the pilot really turned me off. It just felt like it was trying too hard and was just a total chore to watch.

I've been debating wether or not to give the series a rent but don't want to waste my time/money if it's more of the same.

If you're not swept up by the characters and the dialog within the first couple of episodes, then give up, you're beneath the show and not worthy of it.

Well, sorry.

I just felt that the writing was pitiful in the pilot. However as I know most shows have an awkward start, I wondered if perhaps the pilot was the sole bad episode and it hopefully got better later on.

My local library has all three seasons of this series, I mae it about halfway through Season Three.

The dialogue just killed it for me.

That clip is pretty much accurate. They would take two minutes to say something that could be said in a simple sentence, and every third or fourth word would be "cocksucker", "son of a bitch", or "mother fucking".

Considering the show was basically centered around a brothel, and then another brothel, and then almost even a third brothel, all 3 seem fitting.

Kidding aside, I'm not a big fan of gratuitous profanity, of which this show is the standard bearer, but for me it's one of those things where if you let a sligth dislike get in the way, you miss a lot of likes. I found Deadwood an excellent series. I watched it on DVD and couldn't put them down. There's romance, camaraderie, action, heroism, deviousness/cunning/intelligence, a dab of history, and a few women who were pleasant to watch.

That was a big issue for me. I don't mind profanity and have used it often myself. However the dialogue came across like what a teenager would find edgey. It just made the dialogue seem forced.

I watched the Mr Wu episode last night and laughed my ass off the entire time (idk if it was intended to be funny or not) Basically the Mr Wu character, the only english he knows is Swergin, cock sucka, white cock sucka or the numbers 1 and 2. So alot of his scenes were devoted to Swearagin trying to ask him what happened to the opium that was stolen.